Listen
Now is the earth most still.
No plows break the bare and frozen ground.
No creature stirs from its earthbound
burrow, tunnel, nest.
Matter is quiet.
Its clamor
hushed, we hear the rising of the star,
the morning light,
the seed within itself unfolding,
glowing, growing.
All is quiet and the earth most still.
The Navajo teach their children that every morning when the sun comes up, it's a brand new sun. It's born each morning, it lives for the duration of one day, and in the evening it passes on, never to return again. As soon as the children are old enough to understand, the adults take them out at dawn and they say, "The sun has only one day. You must live this day in a good way, so that the sun won't have wasted precious time." Acknowledging the preciousness of each day is a good way to live, a good way to reconnect with our basic joy.